Heavy wind and soft rods

Tenkara Lines
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Haha – Many of your sentiments really resonate with me. As an engineer by day, I very much appreciate the fact that there are many solutions to any given problem and when reviewing advice – I think of it a similar way. Whether it is the nuances of drag/lines/flies or something else, I still try to reinforce why something works if I think it does (or at least come up with a believable reason) --then constantly see if future observations support that. It represents a lot of the fun in this pursuit for me.

I do fish futsu’s – I fished them a lot when I started trying to wean myself off heavy nymphs or beadhead wet fly variations. The idea of anchoring in the water/the current, especially with light tippet really helped me to understand the contact and drag game…not always in tight contact, but being able to gently tug a little and determine when you’ve regained it.

I was out this morning on a tiny creek and I’ve been fishing a simple hybrid fly that is a “jun in the back, futsu up top” – I like this because it both can anchor/push water and it also has some wiggle without having to move it a lot. I don’t know that the pattern really makes much difference, but my manipulations are usually attempting at mimicking what I’ve seen craneflies and caddis do on fast water.

I need to do a lot more screwing around because there are times when I’m sure that a futsu style fly would win the day but a jun tends to win.

I tend to agree that absolutes are not helpful. I have line in/on the water all the time if I think it makes sense. It is always some compromise, and my laziness often funnels the results of a lot of experimentation down into ways do keep the same rig for almost all situations.

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Hi Robert. Thank you for your insights. I have had similar T-fishing experiences with PVC Tenkara Lines and their abilities to cast in windy conditions compared to FC lines. The thing fly lines do not.do as well, as I am sure you already know, is allow you to hold your line up and off of the water. But if it is windy enough that a PVC line is needed, we probably will not be holding our lines off of the water anyway because the wind will be pushing our lines and flies all over the place. For running water, I like FC better. For Stillwater Tenkara fishing, I mostly fish with PVC floating T-lines. DragonTail Tenkara sells 20 feet of 0.6 mm DIA Floating T-line at a reasonable price, set up to girth hitch to your rod’s Lillian, that you can cut to your length requirements as needed. I find that floating Tenkara lines perform best with hand tied tapered leaders of about 8 feet in length, plus 2 to 3 feet of 5X FC tippet. I use 24” of RIO 16 Lb. Steelhead/Salmon Tippet for the leader butt because size 4.5 FC T-line sinks too fast, then 18” of 3.5 FC, 12” of 2.5 FC, followed with 9” of 8 Lb test FC to which the tippet is Loop to Looped on. The FC T-lines are stiffer and lay straighter after stretching than western FC lines do. For leader construction, you want Low-Visibility or Clear Lines.

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